


The Preacher Liked the Cold

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Series: Prompt Responses [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Hurt, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://sherryandgin.tumblr.com/">sherryandgin</a>: "something based on the song '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZULM69DIw">california dreaming</a>?'"</p><p>(Takes place sometime after 09.03.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Preacher Liked the Cold

Dean had offered him a semblance of stability.  
It wasn't the stability he wanted.

So Castiel left the cabin Dean had set him up in and he wandered.

True, it wasn't like before. He wasn't destitute. He had more than just the clothes on his back. But it was still different every day, strange and hard; a challenge. Not as hard as some lives and a lot less restful than others. Dean had been apologetic. He had wanted Cas to have this, at least. Peace and quiet. A home of sorts.

Castiel took almost nothing from the cabin. Just the bag Sam had originally handed him.

Sam had looked just as confused as Cas had felt.  
That made it seem like more of a rejection. That had made it hurt to look Dean in the eyes.

That had made it personal.

His cell phone rings sometimes. He does not answer it. He doesn't respond to texts and he deletes voice messages.

He maxes out his first fraudulent credit card in tattoo parlors. No single artist was up for the challenge of carving anything into his ribs, so he had the skin over them decorated with Enochian to hide himself. On his sides, all the warding he can think of, against angels, demons, and tracking spells. It's true nothing but actual immortality can cloak one from reapers, but their vision can be distorted by certain symbols. It can buy him time. He gets his skin marked up all under his clothes.

In a coffee shop, a girl with spiked green hair approaches him. She saw some of the letters which creep up his neck, above his collar, and she wants to know if she can have a look at the rest of his tattoos. They compare. She has colorful scenery all across her arms and up onto her chest inspired by her favorite paintings. Castiel's tattoos are plentiful and dull. Black and repetitive. They seem like a book fell open and scattered all over his arms.

She likes them anyway, even when he tells her the truth, that they are wards.

Religion must be as much a fairy tale to her as the stories behind the portraits on her own skin. She seems to think his preoccupation with religious texts and symbolism to be charming.

She wants to take him to bed.

As soon as he realizes this, his knee hits the leg of the table hard and he stands, leaving the dregs in his coffee cup and startling her. She frowns as he apologizes and makes a hasty exit. He finds a new tattoo shop in a new town. In every city he stops, he has new work to be done on his skin.

He reaches the west coast and wonders if he can stop for a while.

It's so pleasant here. It was getting cold elsewhere. Sometimes it was unbearably gloomy and wet. He's shivered through nights in the rain. He isn't prepared to do the same in the snow.

California will do.  
It will do especially well because the money has run out.

The second and third credit cards stop working. His first instinct is to be angry with Dean. Obviously, he hasn't returned a call or message and Dean has shut his money down so he will pay attention. Before he can even stop himself he satisfies the bastard by sending him a text.

**That might have worked if not for the cash you left me.**

It was stupid. An aggressive little moment he couldn't put a leash on. A bitterness that swept up the back of his throat. Dean only wanted to keep him on his own terms. He wanted to keep in contact with Cas in case he _needed_ him. In case he could use him after he'd sent him away, denied him a real home and a real family.

The reply comes not a minute later. Cas thinks about just tossing the phone in the trash and walking down the beach.

**cas are you okay?? were are you?  
*where**

He chews his lip for a moment before deciding to tell Dean exactly where he stands.

**Nowhere near you. I do not need your money. I do not need you.**

He's going to send this but two more texts come in before he can.

**a bunch of our ids got made. was probably the angels.  
toss your cards. CALL ME.**

The phone beeps, rapid-fire, as seven more texts come in. Cas does not look at them.

Likely. Yes, likely. Yeah, right.

He doesn't reply. Doesn't hit send. Doesn't read or answer any more.

He turns the phone off and puts it away. He walks around with his jaw clenched. He indulges his anger. He wants to uproot trees and shake foundations and then, abruptly, he does not. Because he knows that under it all is sadness. It's hurt and the betrayal of his feelings for the Winchesters. It's how much he understands that they value their lives and how much Dean wants to keep Sam out of harm's way and how deeply it twinges when he acknowledges the fact that Dean would never do the same for him.

Why did he ever go back? Why did he enter the bunker? Why did he change into new shoes and sit in the soft chairs of the library and fool himself into thinking that life might not be so bad if he could keep these things, be surrounded by all this comfort and maybe love, too?

Why did he bother?

Work can always be found by the churches, so he stays close. The stash of cash will run out soon so he sticks only to essentials -- food and shelter -- and decides the warding in his skin will have to do for now. No more tattoos.

He visits the churches before he needs them for shelter. There is a vocational retreat that he's been contemplating. If he were to go into discernment as a novice, he could give up all the effort it takes to maintain money and essentials. He knows religion. He could kneel and say the prayers without intent, without actual address. He could wear the poverty of a priest in comfort. He could pretend. Live out his days on sacred ground where the only true threat would be in his former brothers discovering him, or his new brothers coming to understand the marks on his skin.

An 8-day retreat would cost all the money he has left, but it would get him in good with the church. Prove that he's not just a vagrant but someone honestly interested in religious vocation.

His mind must not be as quiet as he thought. His prayer not as indirect and fake as it should be. Kambriel finds him there.

She sits in the pew next to him until he looks up. He is afraid at first but she introduces herself by name quickly.

A loyal angel. A friend. Someone who stuck by his side through Raphael's reign.

He is still not especially comforted by her presence.

"I have heard that you are not speaking to—Castiel, I have important information," she says in a whisper, head bent as if praying.

"Ezekiel's been found dead."

Castiel is sad for it. He knows Ezekiel once assisted Sam and Dean. Sam is alive because of him. He was looking out for them. He must have been caught by another of his brothers.

"You need to help Sam Winchester," Kambriel says, insistent. "You need to return, you need to help him."

"Another of our brothers may find the Winchesters and be able to assist them. I can't be of any help. I'm completely without my grace. _You_ could find them. You could help them."

"I will consent to help them, but only with you there to vouch for me. Castiel. Another of our brothers already _has_ found the Winchesters. Ezekiel was the one they thought was helping them. Dean Winchester thinks that Ezekiel is, even now, inside of his brother Sam, healing him."

Castiel sits quietly, staring. He doesn't quite understand--

He turns to his bag, next to him on the pew, and digs through for the phone again.

It blurts back to life alerting him to several more messages. Dean kept sending them after the phone was turned off.

He reads.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong with Sam. Increasingly wrong.

Dean thought he knew what he was doing. He needs to reveal something to Cas.

He needs Castiel's help.  
He begs for Castiel's help.

As he scrolls, the last few messages say exactly what Kambriel has just reported.

Ezekiel found dead.  
Ezekiel found dead far from the bunker, as reported to Dean by another angel.  
Dean returning to the bunker and asking to speak to Ezekiel inside of Sam.

**something is wrong. will you please answer me cas. cas please answer me. answer me please. youve got to help me.**

Kambriel drops the pretense of prayer to grip Castiel's wrist.

"You need to save Sam Winchester."


End file.
